'The Player of Games' by Iain M. Banks
'The Player of Games' by Iain M. Banks

The good

  • Good writing.

  • Interesting world building: (very minor spoilers ahead) the hyper-advanced Culture, with it’s crazy ships, robots, and biological manipulation; the more barbaric Azadians, with their entire life based around a game of the same name; Echronedal, a planet with a ring of fire that circles it once per year, and the way life adapts to it; and so on.

  • An interesting analysis of the role games-in-life, and life-as-games.

  • Some clever twists and turns.

The not so good

  • The whole book focuses on game playing, intrigue, and strategy, but we’re never told the actual rules of the game being played, so as a reader, you can’t participate in any meaningful way. It’s the opposite of “show, don’t tell”: you’re constantly told the protagonist is winning, or losing, or doing something clever, but you have absolutely no way to see it yourself, or to appreciate the brilliance of the moves, or anything. It’s a bit like I feel watching cricket since moving to Ireland: people around me seem really into it, but I don’t know the rules, so I can’t really share in their excitement or appreciation. Actually, it’s even worse, as I can at least watch cricket and try to discern what’s happening; with this book, it’s more like hearing a news report about a cricket match. Even the basic gameplay elements of Azad, which is so central to the story, are never explained to you, so you spend chapter after chapter reading about the narrator playing this game, putting some cards here, or moving this piece there, or whatnot, but without understanding what’s actually going on, I just could not get into it.

  • Many of the characters felt cartoony. No one acted the way any human I know would’ve acted when faced with the crazy situations in the book.

Rating: 3 stars